


Clandestine Homicide

by Orcbait (EmpressofMankind)



Series: Season of the Dragon [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Canon LGBTQ Character, Comedy, Dark Brotherhood - Freeform, F/F, F/M, LGBTQ Character, Murder Mystery, Polyamory, no one is straight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-04-06 06:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19056712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmpressofMankind/pseuds/Orcbait
Summary: Uraea Rendaryn finds that suspiciously large amounts of Imperial Drakes keep finding their way into Ramira Don’s meagre bank account and she wants to make sure she’s correct about where those are coming from. Little does she know the Dark Brotherhood is involved.





	1. Suspicious Deposits

For all that there was a war going on in Cyrodiil, the Gold Coast turned out to be surprisingly peaceful. The sky was blue as Elsweyr porcelain and the golden savannah that gave the region its name remained untouched by fight or fire. Uraea Rendaryn supposed Varen’s wall did exactly what it was meant to do. The region was currently governed by his nephew in his absence if she recalled correctly. She wondered how the local political situation was. Something must have informed the Tharns their decision to relocate here and she doubted it was the fair weather. She had assumed their estate would be near Kvatch, the largest of the two western city-states and the region’s political epicentre. However, that was not the case. Apparently, they’d settled less than a quarter-hour from Anvil. She couldn’t imagine why they, of all people, would take a shine to the modest port. It was a political backwater at best. It turned out they even showed their faces there regularly enough for Uraea to find out where to go in under an hour and without going anywhere near the Mages’ Guild.  
  
She’d rented a horse and set out in the directions provided: east until she reached the old fort and then south-east towards the coastal cliffs. Impossible to miss, she’d been assured. When the estate came into view, she saw the truth of that. The villa’s red roof tiles were just visible above the high, Imperial walls it sheltered behind. A tall, octagonal tower leaned against it. Uraea shook her head. Mages and their Corners-Be-Damned towers. Though that wasn’t how she knew the estate was theirs. She knew because only Abnur Tharn would have the audacity to still hang Imperial banners from the gatehouse lintel. No doubt, he was one of the very few people able to get away with that.  
  
There were soldiers at the gatehouse. They wore the unmistakable armour of the Imperial Legions. She didn’t know their iconography well enough to identify which Legion. Why were they here? The Legions had shattered as surely as the Empire when the Dark Anchors came down, their cohorts scattering to the wind. A cohort was usually led by a battlemage. Had these women and men formed up behind familiar backs in the wake of higher command disintegrating around them? Uraea glanced across her shoulder, at the old fort still visible on the horizon. It had seemed abandoned.  
  
Uraea straightened in the saddle, urged her horse into a brisk trot and rode straight towards the gatehouse. The legionaries saw her and one raised a hand to bid her stop. She did no such thing. A centurion stepped from among them and into the middle of the road, facing her. Uraea urged the horse a step faster. The centurion stood her ground. Uraea pushed her heels into the horse’s flank, stopping it from slowing at the sight of the approaching obstacle. She was on a horse, she had the advantage. She was approaching, fast. The centurion didn’t move a muscle. Until the last moment. A flash of movement, the glint of sunlight on steel. Uraea jerked the reigns back. The horse whinnied in protest. Hooves struck sparks from the cobbles as they skidded to a halt. Inches away from a gladius’ sharp tip.  
  
The centurion didn’t so much as blink. “State your business.”  
  
Uraea drew herself up and mustered all the imperious disdain she had. “I need to speak with Grand Chancellor Abnur Tharn.”  
  
“What business does a Dunmer have with the Imperial Battlemage?” Definitely not using past tense there. It would seem that her guess may well be accurate.  
  
“It concerns a Bosmer and is otherwise none of your business,” Uraea said with a dismissive wave of her hand.   
  
The centurion squinted and took in her appearance. No doubt, she noted her lack of an entourage or even a bodyguard. “Pollux, inform Atticus.”  
  
“Yes, centurion.” One of the legionaries jogged in the direction of the villa.  
  
Uraea took in her surroundings while she waited. The courtyard was dominated by a rectangular, ornamental basin, lined by meticulously trimmed cypress trees. Two larger than life statues of the mages graced the far end. From their location and pose, Uraea realised they were meant to model Empress Alessia and Morihaus. Now that was conceited, even for them.  
  
After a few minutes, the young legionnaire returned, another young man at his heels. He was wearing the livery of house staff rather than armour. “Follow me, if you please,” Atticus said as he inclined his head in deference. The legionnaire accepted the reigns from Uraea as she dismounted. “This way, my lady.” Atticus beckoned her to follow him. “My Lord expects your presence promptly.”  
  
Uraea resisted the urge to roll her eyes but only just. She followed Atticus at her own pace for she refused to come running at the mage’s whim. She was neither sycophant nor spineless bureaucrat and he better remember it. She placed her hand on her sword hilt for good measure. Atticus led her up the broad stone steps behind the statues and into the cool, shadowed interior of the villa. After the burning heat of the midday sun, it was a welcome reprieve. Uraea followed Atticus through an impressively over-filled library and past wooden dividers into a sun-bathed reading room. The mages sat together on a kline, near the window. They had been studying jointly.  
  
“I haven’t seen Ramira since Loredas,” Abnur remarked without looking up. In fact, his gaze didn’t even falter scanning the page of the book he held before them. He moved to turn the page but Pulasia put her hand on its edge. After a moment she removed her hand again.  
  
“That isn’t what I am here to ask.” Uraea produced the parchment roll she’d brought from her pack.  
  
“I don’t know where she is.” Abnur didn’t interrupt his reading, though it had slowed, as now Pulasia waited for him to finish and turn the page. “And against popular belief, I am not in the habit of using magical means to track my partners their whereabouts.”  
  
Uraea unrolled the parchment of bank transcripts and unceremoniously shoved it in front of the book. “Are all these yours?” She didn’t give a skeever’s ass about whether or not his wife knew about them, that was his problem. Evidently, she knew because she didn’t seem particularly alarmed or even surprised by the generous amounts noted down.  
  
Abnur frowned and Uraea could tell by his suspicious squint that she wasn’t going to like his answer. Only now did he look up at her. “Absolutely not.”  
  
“Are you sure?” She realised she’d wanted him to say ‘yes’. For then there weren’t large, untraceable amounts of gold coming into Remi’s possession from Vekh knew where.  
  
“How ignorant do you think I am?” He scowled. “I wouldn’t send a Bosmer to the moneychangers with high-value Drakes liable to land her in prison.” Uraea had suspected as much, for the other deposits, while large, were in copious amounts of painfully small change.  
  
“Who are these additional deposits from?” Pulasia had sat up from her husband’s embrace and closed the book, a ribbon marking the page they’d stopped at.  
  
“I don’t know.” Uraea shook her head and looked at Abnur. “I’m aware of no wealthy ‘interested parties’, other than you.”  
  
Abnur crooked an eyebrow at her comment.  
  
Pulasia suppressed a smile but then frowned. “Perhaps Ramira has sold some of her art? Or found a group to work for, a guild, maybe?”  
  
Uraea shook her head. “Remi hasn’t painted much, lately. And what sort of organisation would pay this much? And for what?”  
  
“They don’t care about her safety,” Abnur mused, his expression dark. Uraea drew some comfort from the fact that he seemed about as unhappy with this monetary mystery as she was herself.


	2. Murder For Hire

“Did you know, there is unrest brewing?”   
  
Mirabelle Motierre’s tone was ever playful as she gathered the half-Bosmer into her lap the way one might a child. Ramira Don looked up into her pretty blue eyes, lined with coal and squinted with coy amusement. The Breton her quarters were the only beautiful and comfortable place in the dour Sanctuary.   
  
Mirabelle traced a finger along the scarification pattern, up from the short mer’s solar plexus, across her collar bones to her chin and tapped her nose. “It’s good for business because people soon want each other dead.”  
  
Ramira leaned up to press a peck against her painted lips, drawing a chuckle from the noblewoman turned assassin.   
  
“Better not let Cimbar see,” Mirabelle teased. “He gets so jealous, the poor dear.”  
  
 “If he sees.” Ramira gave a mischievous shrug.  
  
A sly little smile curved Mirabelle’s full lips. “He’s looking right now.” She snapped her fan open, shielding them from view as she leaned down and kissed the mer.   
  
Ramira reached up to hold Mirabelle’s face with both hands, brown fingers petting her soft, pale cheeks and making her elaborate earrings tinkle. Her kisses were hungry and quick.   
  
Mirabelle smiled into them. They’d leave her lips raw if she let the pint-sized rascal have her way. After a moment or three, she reluctantly extracted herself from Ramira’s grasp. “Do you want to know how I found out?”  
  
“Did you dress up and infiltrate?” Ramira sat up, her expression eager. She found Mirabelle’s ability to camouflage herself in social surroundings very impressive.  
  
“I did, I dressed in the finest Nibenean silks and danced into White Gold with none the wiser.” Mirabelle fanned herself, already enjoying the retelling of her adventure.  
  
Ramira made herself comfortable in Mirabelle’s lap, leaning her cheek against her pale cleavage as she looked up at her.  
  
“You know what I spied with my little eye?” A self-satisfied smile crept onto Mirabelle’s face as she gently caressed the Bosmer’s springy, auburn hair. “The Imperial Battlemage receiving a missive most surreptitiously.”  
  
A frown wrinkled Ramira’s nose. She’d been fairly certain she hadn’t been seen.  
  
Mirabelle smiled behind her fan. “I overheard that it came from the Empress Regent.”  
  
Ramira wondered if she had recognised her.  
  
“He didn’t seem very pleased with its content.” Mirabelle twisted a lock of auburn hair around her finger as she looked down at the Bosmer and fanned herself. “He was very recalcitrant about the missive, and the messenger, when I asked him about it ever so sweetly.”  
  
Ramira smiled. Perhaps not. “Missives are confidential.”  
  
“Why ever would he be sneaky about receiving a little letter from his daughter?” Mirabelle chuckled but then pouted. “I would have made it into the general assembly if it hadn’t been for that sly old fox. You’d think he’d memorised the face of every single councillor, the way he clocked me from across the hall.”  
  
Ramira knew, for a fact, that he had but she didn’t think Mirabelle wanted to hear this.  
  
“Slick as a skeever, that one, and twice as cunning.” Mirabelle sighed, her smile coy as she fanned herself. “He’s wealthy, though, and he certainly knows what a girl likes to hear.”  
  
Ramira nodded in agreement. “I think Abnur is funny.”  
  
One of Mirabelle’s perfectly pencilled eyebrows arched up an impressive distance. She snapped her fan shut with a sly smile and tickled the Bosmer mercilessly. “You dirty, little cliff skipper.  Have you climbed every Imperial this side of the Niben?”  
  
Ramira shrieked with laughter, wriggling in her grasp. “Did not!”  
  
“Just the ones with blue eyes?” Mirabelle teased, letting up.  
  
Ramira, asprawl in her lap, cocked her head. “I guess?”  
  
Mirabelle shook hers. “You’re a strange one. Cute, but strange.”  
  
Ramira smiled broadly and sat up to press a kiss against her lips. “I love you, too.”  
  
Mirabelle reached up to stroke her cheek and cup her chin. She pressed a finger against Ramira’s lips. “Shh, wouldn’t want anyone to get jealous.”  
  
Ramira grinned and curled back up as Mirabelle pulled her towards herself.   
  
“You know what I’ve always wondered?” Mirabelle said. “How you know there’s a contract for you. You aren’t usually here.”  
  
Terenus had taken an uncharacteristic shine to the Bosmer, though that wasn’t quite the right turn of phrase. Mirabelle suspected the Speaker had found himself a bite-sized Silencer. She’d never seen the affable Bosmer kill and found it hard to imagine. Like Hildegard, even though she was a werewolf. Perhaps, that was the point.  
  
Ramira looked up at her. “I dream about him.”  
  
“How unpleasant.” Mirabelle’s face mired in distaste. She knew corpses less ghoulish than him and preferred to stay well out of his way. “Is that why you came today?”  
  
Ramira shook her head.  
  
Mirabelle crooked an eyebrow. “Then why?”  
  
Ramira grinned. “I dreamt about you.”  
  
“Oh, aren’t you a little charmer.” Mirabelle caught the Bosmer’s face with both hands and pressed a kiss on her nose. “Go find Terenus, he’ll be pleased to see you.”  
  
Ramira’s eyes widened a fraction. “Did he say so?”  
  
“Sweet Mother, no. I bet he’d sooner die.” Mirabelle playfully squeezed Ramira’s freckled cheeks. She winked. “But I can tell.”  
  
A pleased smile split Ramira’s face. She rose, pressed a kiss to Mirabelle’s cheek and hopped away in that peculiar springy manner Bosmer did.  Cute but strange, that one.

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such, it is very dear to me. I would love to hear what you thought of it! And please, share this story freely but credit me and link back to me. Thank you!


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